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  • May. 6th, 2008 at 11:48 PM
superme
I made risotto and chicken picatta tonight, both for the first time, both perfectly.

I am amazing. I am a culinary queen.

I sure hope risotto refrigerates, though, because holy crap, a tiny bit of rice turned into a lot of delicious creamy goodness.

So, anyway, basically I am in favour of any kind of cooking that requires butter and lots of it. I think skim milk and all its offspring (lite sour cream, lite cream cheese, etc) are the foul products of the devil's teats.

Who's with me?

Poll #1183439
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All

Skim milk: vile?

View Answers

Ew, totally.
36 (46.2%)

Yes... but I use it in cooking, where you can't really tell. Not on my cereal, though!
4 (5.1%)

I've been drinking skim for so long I can't tell the difference any more.
16 (20.5%)

Skim milk is perfectly tasty, you dairy-prejudist!
17 (21.8%)

Jesus, Karen, your arteries must be completely solid..
5 (6.4%)

Comments

( comment )
[info]unlovablehands wrote:
May. 6th, 2008 02:04 pm (UTC)
I drank skim milk as a wee person, and now don't drink milk at all, but I always found even plain old 2% milk nasty in its heaviness. Of course, now that I'm vegan, I drink full-fat soymilk and the light stuff is so watery as so gross me out massively, so I might be on your side now. I'm not sure.
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[info]labellementeuse wrote:
May. 6th, 2008 02:05 pm (UTC)
I said only drinking, but only because you didn't have an option for eating on cereal (where it doesn't matter) and not in baking (where it matters! Because if you're going to bake, bake right.) IMO it's just like butter and marge: marge on toast is fine but I wouldn't use it to bake a cake. EVER.

Hey, feel like sharing the recipes? I love risotto... from a box... but I'd like to make it myself.
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[info]karenhealey wrote:
May. 6th, 2008 02:14 pm (UTC)
Oh, man, I can't take skim on cereal. It's just so watery.

I used this risotto recipe: http://www.cuisine.com.au/recipe/risotto-all-arrabbiata

It takes some time, and you have to be careful not to let the rice stick, but it's totally worth it. Also, three tips that recipe doesn't tell you:

- saute the rice with the onions until the rice grains are mostly translucent - this will take about ten minutes
- warm the wine before you add it (in the microwave is fine)
- likewise, have the stock simmering in another pot during the ladle-and-stir period. If you add cold liquids, you can "shock" the rice, so that the inside stays dry and hard and the outside flakes off.

The idea is that you're convincing the rice to gradually release its starches and soak up the stock, creating a rich sauce.
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[info]karenhealey wrote:
May. 6th, 2008 02:17 pm (UTC)
Oh, and I left out the pancetta because I was having chicken instead. And really, it was so rich as was, I'm not sure I would have liked it with the pancetta.
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[info]labellementeuse wrote:
May. 6th, 2008 02:57 pm (UTC)
I usually eat my cereal in a highly refined state of choking it down two minutes I wake up so you know, sensitivity levels are not all that. Also, I eat Weet-Bix, and I really kind of hate it, so it can't make it much worse. :P

Ooh, thanks very much. Totes going to try that for lunch tomorrow.
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[info]specialknives wrote:
May. 6th, 2008 02:05 pm (UTC)
I actually prefer skim/trim to regular milk as I find the alternative a little too thick for my taste. I have a similar preference for diet coke - regular coke tastes thick and syrupy to me.
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[info]karenhealey wrote:
May. 6th, 2008 02:09 pm (UTC)
See, and I love diet coke (and regular is too much now) but I had to train myself into it.
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[info]affreca wrote:
May. 6th, 2008 02:23 pm (UTC)
I'm the opposite on Coke. I used to drink only diet Coke (what was in the house when I was growing up) and couldn't stand normal Coke. I started drinking regular Coke and now can't stand diet Coke.

I used to drink skim or 1/2% milk (again, what was in the house. Mom was on a health kick). I started drinking fattier milk because that is what the roommate liked. I got used to it, and can't stand anything less fatty. Recently, I started drinking the local whole milk, and it is wonderfully rich.

Roommate also got me to cook with butter, and I'm not going back. Except for boxed cheese and mac, with requires margarine.
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[info]jessikast wrote:
May. 6th, 2008 08:34 pm (UTC)
Ditto! I much prefer skim to full milk, and I hate the way regular coke leaves my teeth feeling coated in sugary syrup. I much prefer the taste of diet coke (and diet V etc.) Aspartane rules, OK!
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[info]laechim wrote:
May. 6th, 2008 02:13 pm (UTC)
The thing that turns me off skim milk (besides it being very slightly translucent at the edges, which gives it an odd look), is that it makes all my cereal taste... wrong. Just very wrong. Even boring cereal, which didn't seem possible until I tried it.

I'm surprised that it works for cooking for people, though. Although I guess you didn't say baking, where the fat content is a little more important.

-Mecha
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[info]karenhealey wrote:
May. 6th, 2008 02:14 pm (UTC)
Yeah, anyone who bakes with skim is just asking for trouble.
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[info]veejane wrote:
May. 6th, 2008 02:22 pm (UTC)
The idea of drinking whole milk makes me feel queasy. It's just too dense to drink; I've only ever drunk skim (though I don't drink milk at all any more). I do put half-and-half in my coffee, but that's a massive dilution of the density of cream.

But I do cook with real butter -- especially bake with it -- and because I don't keep skim in the house, I usually end up cooking with diluted half-and-half whenever milk is called for. But I dilute it pretty far, especially if the recipe has already called for butter. Because, half-and-half is basically butter's more liquid little sister, you know?

(The only reason to keep not-real-butter in the house is for flexibility in pie crusts.)
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[info]karenhealey wrote:
May. 6th, 2008 02:56 pm (UTC)
What on earth is half-an-half? It sounds intriguing!
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[info]veejane wrote:
May. 6th, 2008 03:07 pm (UTC)
Half cream, half whole milk! All the richness of the former but the liquidity and taste of the latter. Perfect for coffee. And it keeps much, muuuuch longer than milk, so I don't have to worry about it going bad within the week.
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[info]peterstanton wrote:
May. 7th, 2008 06:48 pm (UTC)
This should definitely be an option in the poll. I've never tried skimmed milk, but semi-skimmed ('half-and-half' in U.S.A. I think) is the default since whole/full-fat/pasteurised-only milk is undrinkable (but nice on cereal).
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[info]puritybrown wrote:
May. 6th, 2008 02:46 pm (UTC)
I have never properly understood what "skim milk" means. Where I come from, we have whole milk, low-fat milk (half the fat of whole milk), and Slimline, which is 99% fat-free. Which of these is "skim milk", if any?

I was raised on the low-fat kind so Slimline tastes like water and whole milk tastes too thick. But I like to use whole milk when I'm making Angel Delight, because it sets better that way.
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[info]karenhealey wrote:
May. 6th, 2008 02:56 pm (UTC)
Any kind of lower-fat milk is skim - the cream has been "skimmed off".
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[info]veejane wrote:
May. 6th, 2008 03:12 pm (UTC)
Ah, but in the US, skim milk means nonfat milk. (In fact, the bottles no longer say skim upfront, but say "0% milkfat".) When we mean less-than-whole, but not skim, milk, we specify a fat percentage, like 1% or 2%, but skim milk always means (in the US) skimmed-all-the-way.

(I think we also have products that are chemically-fiddled-with, which are supposed to be 0% fat but taste like whole milk, but, I'm not sure they're even allowed to be called milk, the way that nuclear-yellow cheese is officially called "cheese food." Because it's not really cheese.)
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[info]karenhealey wrote:
May. 7th, 2008 07:18 am (UTC)
YOUR COUNTRY IS CRAZY, MAN. WHO DOES THAT TO MILK? WOT? WOT?
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[info]linakitten wrote:
May. 6th, 2008 03:43 pm (UTC)
Ugh, skim milk tastes like white paint and I can't drink the stuff, it tastes so disgusting. I always drank/used semi-skimmed at home, which is ok, but since coming to uni, it's been whole milk and pure butter all the way! I have a friend who drinks UHT skimmed milk and I have no idea how she can do it. >
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[info]rollingdamage wrote:
May. 6th, 2008 03:45 pm (UTC)
Whole milk or NO MILK.

My maw maw tried to switch it out once; she put skim milk in a bottle that was marked "whole". She poured me a glass and I started to drink it, but I could tell the difference immediately, and refused to drink the rest. My paw paw just LAUGHED and laughed.

I like that whole milk that gets that SKIN at the top of the jug and tastes like you're drinking CREAM.
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[info]lirazel wrote:
May. 6th, 2008 03:57 pm (UTC)
I was TOTALLY on your side--2% milkfat was as low as I'd go. Skim milk, as far as I was concerned, came from dead cows.

And then someone suggested I try organic skim. Still looks semi-dead, but the taste! Well beyond "standard" non-fat--definitely cereal-worthy.

(I don't have cholesterol issues--odd, for someone built like a butterball, but true--but Bravest does. No marge, though. Real butter, or do without!)
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[info]karenhealey wrote:
May. 7th, 2008 07:19 am (UTC)
We hit a terminology problem! Here, anything but whole milk is skim milk.
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[info]apgeeksout wrote:
May. 6th, 2008 04:08 pm (UTC)
Risotto refrigerates perfectly -- in fact, it is even more delicious on the second day.

Skim milk & I get along fine, but it's gotta be real butter, especially for baking.

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[info]travellers_joy wrote:
May. 6th, 2008 04:09 pm (UTC)
BUTTER!!!!
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[info]sbbo wrote:
May. 6th, 2008 04:34 pm (UTC)
I have no problem drinking most kinds of milk, though. I think I normally drink 1%, but my family always buys skim so I drink that with them.

I'm a firm believer that if you are going to drink pop at all, you might as well do it right. Caffeine free and diet really push my buttons. Whats the point in that?
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[info]arionhunter wrote:
May. 6th, 2008 06:12 pm (UTC)
I have never understood people who drank whole milk. My mental image of drinking it is something akin to drinking heavy-duty paint, and there's this residue afterwards.

Then again, I am a total food heathen. I tend to prefer mac and cheese out of the box with powder as opposed to macaroni with actual cheese. And I still see nothing wrong with "the stuff in the green can."

However, I put my foot down at Velveeta. And provel is downright vile.
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[info]chrisomatic wrote:
May. 6th, 2008 06:58 pm (UTC)
I'm lactose intolerant, so I can't have any of it. T_T

But I was never a huge fan of skim milk.
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[info]disturbed_kiwi wrote:
May. 6th, 2008 07:10 pm (UTC)
Full Whole Whatever Milk = REAL Milk
My sister went on exchange to Canada when she was 16. She discovered there that New Zealand dairy was different to Canadian dairy. Their whole milk was approximately the same as the really really low-fat milk back here. And the family she was with were health conscious so used the Canadian low-fat milk... She said it was as if they'd added some white food colouring to water.

Funnily enough, when a couple of the friends she made came over to visit her in New Zealand they just about choked on our milk they found it so thick.
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[info]ktempest wrote:
May. 6th, 2008 07:18 pm (UTC)
Re: Full Whole Whatever Milk = REAL Milk
*wants to come to New Zealand to have their superior milk*
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[info]brown_betty wrote:
May. 6th, 2008 09:55 pm (UTC)
Re: Full Whole Whatever Milk = REAL Milk
Yeah, Canada defines whole milk as 3.25% milkfat, due to shenanigans with Canada's Milk Marketing Board which is like, entry #72 in Canada: Crazy Commies, or Devil Socialists?
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[info]ktempest wrote:
May. 6th, 2008 07:17 pm (UTC)
skm milk is nothing more than white water with a tiny bit of vitamins in it. it's completely pointless.
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[info]mysticpenguin wrote:
May. 6th, 2008 07:26 pm (UTC)
You know, I've never drunk whole milk, or if I did, it was long enough ago that I don't remember it. We generally have skim milk in our house when we have any milk at all. I like the taste of half-fat milk, but it leaves this nasty film in my mouth.
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[info]poisonivory wrote:
May. 6th, 2008 07:37 pm (UTC)
I grew up on 1% milk, but I started drinking skim in college and now 1% tastes decadent to me and whole is like drinking cream. Since I drink, like, half a gallon of milk a day, anything with a higher fat content would leave me dead in the gutter by 10 am.
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[info]kamalloy wrote:
May. 6th, 2008 08:03 pm (UTC)
I drink skim milk with meals, generally, and I guess that's close enough to the way some people drink water that I don't really notice the difference.

I don't eat cereal, so that doesn't affect me. I tried when I was younger to eat cereal with milk, but I could never eat it fast enough, and it ended up being soggy and ew. Dry cereal, on the other hand, is way too boring on its own, so I eat other things for breakfast. (Usually granola bars or something like that.) I'm not big on most traditional American breakfast foods, to the point where my fiance, in frustration, once asked "What did breakfast ever do to you?"
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[info]msconduct wrote:
May. 6th, 2008 10:46 pm (UTC)
Making risotto the traditional way is delightfully Slow Food-esque, but the sad truth is that you can throw it in the microwave and it comes out exactly the same. Which sort of ruins the whole thing. (It's "piccata", BTW.)
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[info]karenhealey wrote:
May. 6th, 2008 11:36 pm (UTC)
Well, hey, thanks for dimming my triumph!
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[info]msconduct wrote:
May. 6th, 2008 11:55 pm (UTC)
It's good to know how to do it the traditional way as well. Come the apocalypse you'll be the one producing perfect risotto over an open fire. And it will keep the zombies off as well.
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[info]aquahaute wrote:
May. 6th, 2008 10:53 pm (UTC)
Aaron grew up on skim. I grew up on whole (I was a very skinny child) and later on 2%. These days, we compromise somewhere around 1% or 2%. Largely because 90% of the time if one of us is having it as a drink, it's me, and most of the other uses are in cooking and baking.
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[info]betacandy wrote:
May. 9th, 2008 05:10 am (UTC)
There are actually some studies that contradict the idea that dairy fat automatically clogs everyone's arteries. And there are studies suggesting skim dairy does... I forget, but something that's tough on your kidneys or liver or something.

All I know is, my mom's family grew up on their own whole milk (unpasteurized, too, oh noes!) and they all live to be at least 90+.

Besides, life without butter is no life at all. I'd sooner give up chocolate.
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[info]karenhealey
chocolate in the fruit bowl

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